Saudi shocked at Iran claims about nuke scientist

DUBAI:  Saudi Arabia slammed Tehran's allegations that it had handed over Iranian nuclear scientist, Shahram Amiri, to the United States after he disappeared in the kingdom in May, a London-based Saudi newspaper reported Wednesday.

Amiri reportedly disappeared from the holy city of Medina, just three days after landing in Saudi Arabia to perform Umra, or lesser pilgrimage.

"Saudi Arabia receives over a million Iranian pilgrims every year and like all pilgrims, they are usually under the supervision of their country's official mission with regards to their housing and transportation," Asharq Alawsat quoted Saudi Foreign Ministry official, Osama Neqaly, as saying.

Negaly said that the Saudi authorities had searched for Amiri, following reports of his disappearance in Medina, but he is yet to be found.

"Results of the search have been reported to the Iranian mission and the their embassy, but we have not received an official response from Tehran until now," Neqaly said.

The U.S. State Department Tuesday declined to comment on Iranian claims that Washington abducted Amiri while he was in Saudi Arabia.

"We are aware of the Iranian claims," said department spokesman Philip Crowley. "I have no information on that."

"I'm not going to say anything else," he insisted, as reporters pressed him on the matter at a press briefing.

Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki earlier accused Washington of kidnapping Amiri.

"Based on existing pieces of evidence that we have at our disposal, the Americans had a role in Mr. Amiri's abduction," he said at a press conference in Farsi, which was translated into English by Press TV.

Earlier Tuesday, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast acknowledged for the first time that Amiri is a nuclear scientist, something which Iranian officials have previously declined to confirm.

Brazil lights up annual floating Christmas tree.

RIO DE JANEIRO: The lights are blazing from the world's largest floating Christmas tree -- a gigantic 85-metre high metal structure set on a lagoon in Rio de Janeiro.

Despite the rain, some 100,000 people flocked around the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon on Saturday (December 5) night to watch the fireworks show which has become one of the city's main tourist attractions over the past decade.

This year, the tree constructed by Brazil's largest insurance company features images of Christmas wreaths flickering from its nearly three million lights.

Moema Garcia who watched the show with her mother said the bad weather didn't get in the way of the event.

"Every year (the lighting show) is good, but today was specially beautiful. The rain wasn't trouble at all. And I hope the love remains in everybody's hearts because that is what matters and not tree itself, which is beautiful. (I hope) that everybody is more considering with the others and that kindness begets kindness," she said.

With the mountain-top Christ the Redeemer statue looking down on it, the tree stands as a brightly flashing symbol of peace in one of the world's most violent cities.

"It (the floating christmas tree) is good because it represents a moment of peace in Rio. We see so much war, we live with so much violence in Rio, and this shows a little bit of the union, the harmony that Rio also has. Rio is not just about violence, there are also very good moments for the residents to enjoy," said Alan Patrick, who went to the show with his wife.

The Christmas tree, first erected in 1996, is Rio de Janeiro's third biggest tourist event after the pre-lenten Carnival and New Year's Eve on Copacabana and other beaches.

More than a million people are expected to view the structure before the lights are turned off on January 6.

The Guinness Book of Records lists it as the world's largest floating Christmas tree.

In comparison, the Christmas tree in New York's Rockefeller Center is 22 meters tall and has 30,000 lights, although it is a real Norwegian spruce.

Kazakhs revive ancient tradition of eagle hunt

ASTANA:   With the first fall of snow on the windswept steppe lands of eastern Kazakhstan on Saturday (December 5), hunters saddled up and rode, eagles on their arms, on the day when tradition says the hunting season begins.

The sudden snowfall masks rocks and hills with a sparkling blanket of snow, making it easier for the men to follow animal tracks -- and, when the time is right, release their giant golden eagles into the air to snatch up foxes and rabbits.

In modern-day Kazakhstan, hunting with eagles is being revived as a sport by enthusiasts of every generation, who travel across this vast country to participate in tournaments like the one held on Saturday in the Chengelsky Gorge, near the eastern border with China.

"My father taught me, I taught my son, and now I'm teaching my grandsons," said Baurzhan Yeshmetov, a 62-year-old man in an embroidered velvet tunic, his eagle perched heavily on his arm.

Nearby his two grandsons stood in costume, each with his own smaller hawk on his arm. Yeshmetov, when not hunting, puts on his city clothes and works as a taxi driver in Kazakhstan's financial hub of Almaty.

Hunters often gather in the icy hills on the Kazakh border with China -- far from cities like Almaty, bustling with luxury cars and wi-fi cafes -- to determine whose eagle is the best.

The Kazakh eagle is indeed one of the world's fiercest, with a wingspan of 6.6 feet, razor-sharp talons and the ability to dive at the speed of an express train -- up to 190 mph.

During the Saturday tournament, a panel of juries watched with unsmiling faces from a hilltop as hunters, clad in massive fox-fur hats, unleashed straps and sent eagles into the air.

Nearby, villagers, wrapped in layers of felt and fur against the icy wind, prepared kebabs in open-air barbeque stands, sending plumes of blue smoke drifting across the hills.

Loudspeakers blared Kazakh folk songs and tourists, some looking out of place with their binoculars and fluorescent outdoor gear, stared in awe from a distance.

Many in Kazakhstan see eagle hunting as a symbol of their nation's nomadic past and a throwback to an oft-romanticised era before these steppes turned into a geopolitical battleground between competing regional powers like Russia and China.

Two decades of explosive economic growth that followed Kazakhstan's independence from Moscow's rule in 1991 have also created a curious generation of young Kazakhs whose search for a new identity has led them to look to this old hunting tradition.

"Now the art of eagle hunting is being taught in schools and many young people have started to take up the sport of eagle hunting," said 2008 champion Makpal Muptekekyzy.

As a woman, she is rare in the sport of eagle hunting, but has become a popular competitor in local contests, with her elaborate costume and classic Kazakh good looks.

Called 'berkutchi' in Kazakh, professional eagle hunters number only about 50 in Kazakhstan -- a vast nation that has used its oil wealth to transform itself from a sleepy Soviet backwater into a modern consumer society.

Some locals see the revival as a chance to build the local tourist industry.

"We are starting to revive this activity, because it's our heritage, it's one of our national sports, and besides, for tourists it's a very exotic kind of sport", said local businessman Sakhin Abdikalliev.

For the hunters themselves, the bond with an eagle carries a powerful mystique which may even help to restore humanity's relationship with nature.

"I think what is most dangerous in the 21st century isn't weapons, or atomic bombs, it's the ecological crisis. Hunting with eagles is the best link between man and nature - if you hunt with eagles, they teach you to understand nature", said Abuk Khak, one of Kazakhstan's first eagle hunters to emerge at the end of the Soviet Union.

Eagle hunting was largely banned during Soviet rule and the tradition would have disappeared altogether had it not been doggedly preserved by ethnic Kazakhs in China and Mongolia.

In the biggest blow, more than a million Kazakhs took their skills to their graves during a Soviet-inflicted famine in the 1930s when Josef Stalin's forced collectivisation campaign erased entire villages in Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia.

US has no intelligence on Bin Laden: Gates

WASHINGTON:  The United States does not know where al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is hiding and has not had any good intelligence on his whereabouts in years, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Saturday.

Speaking in an interview to be aired on Sunday on ABC's "This Week" program, Gates also said he could not confirm reports this week that a detainee might have seen bin Laden in Afghanistan earlier this year.

When asked if Pakistan was doing enough to apprehend the United States' most wanted criminal, Gates answered: "Well, we don't know for a fact where Osama bin Laden is. If we did, we'd go get him."

The BBC reported earlier this week that a detainee in Pakistan claimed to have information that bin Laden was in Ghazni in eastern Afghanistan in January or February.

Asked when was the last time the United States had any good intelligence on his whereabouts, Gates said, "I think it's been years."

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee released a report late last month that blamed the lack of concerted efforts by former President George W. Bush's administration and U.S. military commanders for allowing bin Laden to escape from the Tora Bora caves of Afghanistan in late 2001.

New Afghan policy must not hurt Pakistan: FO

PAKISTAN:  US President Barack Obama's plans to boost troop numbers in Afghanistan need to ensure there is ‘no adverse fallout’ on Pakistan, foreign office said on Wednesday. ‘Pakistan looks forward to engaging closely with (the) US in understanding the full import of the new strategy and to ensure that there would be no adverse fallout on Pakistan,’ the ministry said in a statement. Pakistani officials fear a dramatic increase in US troops in Afghanistan will push militants and refugees across its borders and complicate its own battle against the Taliban. "Pakistan and the US need to closely coordinate their efforts to achieve shared objectives,’ said the foreign ministry. ‘There is certainly the need for clarity and coordination on all aspects of the implementation of the strategy.’